Remembrance Day Service

Sun 12 Nov 17

Remembrance Day commemorates all who have fought and fallen in the defence of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. It has an added significance in Tower Hamlets as the location of the national Merchant Navy Memorial. This bears the names of those merchant seafarers and fishermen killed in the First and Second World Wars together with the Falklands Campaign, for whom there is no grave but the sea.

As an example, the section of bronze panel shown here lists some of all 14 crew members lost when the SS Sea Serpent was sunk off Folkestone on 23rd March 1916 by a mine laid by the submarine UC 6. Its commander, Oberleutnant zur See Matthias Graf von Schmettow, sank 78 ships in total.

The Sea Serpent, 902 tons, was carrying corrugated galvanised sheets from Liverpool to Dunkirk and was owned by Leach & Co of London with some of those named above having even more local links: George Anderson, 24, was a fireman or stoker born in Poplar; Frederick Barrow,16, mess room boy, came from Newhaven; Primus Bontempi, 33, fireman, of 228 West Ferry Rd, Millwall; Alfred Douglas, 48, fireman, of Carnaby St, W1; Alfred Hamon, 48, Second Mate of 28 Blenheim Rd, East Ham.

Named on the Memorial are some 12,000 from the First World War, 24,000 from the Second and 17 from the Falklands Campaign. Men and women aged from 13 to 74, all are civilians yet two from the First War were awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military decoration.

All are welcome at the service which will be conducted by the Reverend Reg Sweet, Honorary Chaplain to the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, assisted by the Reverend Margaret Sweet. It will be accompanied by The Philip Wake Quartet.